This is a common question and one that needs to be put into simple terms before we move on to what digital marketing can do for you and your business. Simply put, digital marketing is a form of advertising that is delivered through digital channels. Some examples of these digital channels include social media, apps, email, search engines, websites, etc. Digital marketing is essentially the practice of selling and marketing products and/or services online.
Remember when traditional advertising mostly made use of billboards to advertise to the masses? Well, think of digital marketing like a billboard, just existing online instead. The function of this digital ‘billboard’ is to make use of different digital platforms in order to market to different audiences who frequent those online platforms.
This way of marketing has proven to be a great strategy so far. Why? Well, if you pay attention to Google and Facebook who are both digital giants in their own right, you will notice that they tend to generate more revenue when compared to traditional media-oriented businesses. This is due to people’s attention being shifted away from billboards and other traditional forms of advertising towards digital marketing. This makes sense as most people frequent the internet daily.
Digital marketing is the new traditional marketing. Some effective assets that digital marketing specialists typically use to market products and services include, websites, branded assets, (a business logo), video content, images, written content, customer reviews as well as your business social media pages. These are by no means an exhaustive list and the assets mentioned above are all effective and powerful tools that will afford you the ability to advertise your business online.
Digital marketing can be used for the promotion of any business, big or small, no matter what products or services you provide. This is because there is always a market out there that you can specifically target to attract your ideal clients and customers for a nominal fee, as opposed to mass marketing through a billboard, which ends up generally being a lot more expensive and is not always guaranteed to get you the desired results.
There are two types of main business markets, B2C Companies and B2B Companies.
B2C companies, typically do not offer incredibly expensive products or services and because of that, all they really have to do to taste success is make sure that they craft the right messaging around their products or services and sell to the right audience.
To do so, B2C Companies would benefit from embracing digital marketing channels like social media marketing and paid social campaigns as their main channels to market their services. The reason being that these channels allow one’s business to get noticed by the right clients and customers quickly. It also doesn’t hurt to include SEO (search engine optimisation) into your marketing strategy, as it is a complementary addition to your overall digital marketing efforts. This method of marketing is not a complicated process and proves to be quite straight forward.
Building brand awareness or trust before closing a sale is not required in the B2C space. Offering an exciting deal online is all that it takes for customers or clients to pay attention and buy from your B2C business.
When identifying the best marketing avenue for B2B Companies, one should certainly consider including paid search, the most popular being Google Ad Words, as a viable advertising option. The reason being that most B2B businesses typically have niche audiences that can prove difficult to target otherwise.
Using longer-term strategies in conjunction with paid search, like content marketing or email marketing has proven effective in closing a deal when owning a B2B business.
As a business owner, don’t be afraid to play around and experiment to find what works specifically for your business. Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t and make sure to choose the right blend of marketing channels and strategies based on what has worked for you in the past. In doing so, you will be able to identify the most profitable marketing mix for your business.
No one can deny that digital marketing is the most prefered current method and the future of advertising. So learning and embracing it is certainly the way to go if you desire to make your business a success online.
Get in touch with us to begin you digital marketing journey today!
